The first and the most certain way is to read about it in the Bible; but the second, and perhaps the more striking, is to search for it below the surface of the earth itself, and to study its ruins; for among these, most astonishing and instructive discoveries are to be made, as I shall soon show you.

For nearly one hundred years geologists have been studying the history of the earth's crust in this way, as I told you before, when I mentioned to you MM. de Luc and de Saussure. You remember, doubtless, how many times already I have shown you with what exactness their discoveries confirm the boldest assertions of the narrative of Moses about the work of the first four days,-assertions which the learned men of former times refused to believe, and even derided. Well, my friends, the opinions of all have changed since then, and I should like to explain this subject more fully to you, with the hope of making you reverence and admire, more than ever, the precious pages of Genesis, which never change.

In our last lesson we stopped at the time of the fourth day's work.

How beautiful our earth then was! The

great luminary of the heavens had risen for the first time on the fields and plains, brilliant with all the new-born beauty of nature, -on the forests, meadows, and streams. The earth was then a paradise of verdure, the garden of gardens in its first fresh beauty. But this lovely garden was as yet, after all, only an uninhabited desert.

In vain did the sun rise above the mountains in unclouded splendour; in vain did the moon, during those clear starry nights, move in beauty through the vault of heaven,-there were none on earth to admire it, there was

no living person to glorify God.

The moun

tains were settled,—the dry land had appeared; the waters were gathered together into oceans and seas; the clouds drew up their stores of water, and dispersed them again where they were required; the earth was adorned and ready, completely furnished and stored with food, the palace was prepared and ornamented, decorated with garlands and carpeted with flowers but the king had not yet come to it; all had been made ready and stored up for his use, but he was not yet formed from the dust of the ground.

What a wonderful work of creation was the work of those two days! and how many things I might tell you about all the curious living creatures that were called into being on the fifth day,—the great sea monsters and all the living things that swarm in the waters, and the birds and all the insects which fly in the air,-from the whale to the smallest fish, from the eagle to the feeble fly!

How many things I might tell you, also, about the animals created on the sixth day, -about all that walk or creep on the earth, from the elephant and rhinoceros to the snail!

I know but little on this great subject, yet if I were to tell you even the little that I know,—were it only, for instance, about an ant, about the heart, the blood, and the veins of a little mouse,-about the wings, the trunk, and the eyes of a fly, or about its little feet, which are formed to enable it to walk on the ceiling with its head downward, the account even of these few things would occupy the time of our lessons for a year.

I shall only tell you, in order to give you some idea of the numbers of the smallest creatures, that Professor Ehrenberg has discovered